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Blache: Sunday's Game 'a Matter of Will'

Greg Blache flipped the script on us and did his weekly schlub session Wednesday instead of Thursday, so here are some hiighlights a day early.

Blache is troubled that his team has yielded 200 yards on the ground in the past five quarters, and attributed some of the perimeter run-defense problems at Seattle to lack of gap discipline and poor leverage. Against the Giants, the NFL's top rushing attack, that cannot happen again. Blache talked about his defense having to "blow up and be physical," saying, "it's a matter of will." He realizes how beat up the front seven is, but he isn't worrying about who will be in and who will be out.

He is looking at this as a measuring-stick game.

"This will tell us who we are," he said, later adding, "We've got to learn to defend our home field."

Blache said he is "very comfortable and very confident" that H.B. Blades can play well at middle linebacker should London Fletcher miss the game. He spoke of Blades playing "deaf," meaning he does not listen to all the talk about him being too small or inexperienced, he just makes plays. Blache said he has no idea whether Fletcher will play and doesn't worry about such things because his heartburn, he says, is bad enough on a good day.

Blache blamed himself for some of the run defense problems in the first half of the first meeting with the Giants in the season opener, saying the focus was on taking away wide receiver Plaxico Burresss, and he should have made better calls and adjustments.

While Blache admitted that his linemen and linebackers are more beat up than in that first game, he also noted how much deeper and healthier his secondary is. Shawn Springs missed that game, Chris Horton was just emerging and DeAngelo Hall was not yet here. Eli Manning and Burress basically played pitch-and-catch whenever they wanted in that opening game, and with all his match-up options available Sunday, Blache is looking to negate that.

Blache is also hoping his players draw off the emotion of the pregame ceremony honoring Sean Taylor. He spoke of Taylor "being a little different," when he came here as a rookie in 2004, then evolving and maturing. Whenever Blache brought a kid to Redskins Park for any reason, Taylor was always rushing over to chat and sign autographs, saying "he always made that kid feel very, very special."

He also added that the those of us in the media "never got to know the Sean Taylor that we know."

...

Fans are asked to be in their seats by 12:30 for the pregame ceremony, in which Sean Taylor will be inducted into the Ring of Fame.

Where there's a will and a dead body, there's also a bunch of greedy relatives.

Posted by: dcsween | November 26, 2008 1:25 PM | Report abuse

Not sure what that's all about but moving on...

Look, our offense has struggled. Giants D is nasty. No doubt. But OUR DEFENSE is nothing to sneeze at either. Our front seven will suck it up. This is Sean Taylor - maybe our most gifted player of all time, shot dead at 24 - being honored, memorialized, immortalized (inasmuch as one can do so with a mere mortal). They will bring it. This will be a defensive struggle.

I heard someone compare this game to the Bills game last year - I can't think of a worse analogy. That team was emotionally drained. This team tomorrow will be eomotionally OD'ing. If they can balance that fine line and not get too overcharged, we should be in this game to the end.

"Look, our offense has struggled. Giants D is nasty. No doubt. But OUR DEFENSE is nothing to sneeze at either. Our front seven will suck it up. This is Sean Taylor - maybe our most gifted player of all time, shot dead at 24 - being honored, memorialized, immortalized (inasmuch as one can do so with a mere mortal). They will bring it. This will be a defensive struggle.

I heard someone compare this game to the Bills game last year - I can't think of a worse analogy. That team was emotionally drained. This team tomorrow will be eomotionally OD'ing. If they can balance that fine line and not get too overcharged, we should be in this game to the end.

I say Skins 16-14 on a Suisham FG. Or Horton safety.

HAIL

Posted by: Notorious_LMG"

this is kinda the reason I don't like them doing this before a game, period.

Sean Taylor's death shouldn't be something people use as incentive to play a football game hard. I just don't like it, seems kinda cheesy and cheapened.